ReTelling
by fringeperson
Summary: Every time a story is told, it changes a little bit. One teller will emphasise that a child was taken away, another that the king fell in love, and every time it is heard and told again, something else is forgotten and something else changes, though often in essence it remains mostly the same. JxS, oneshot, complete, don't own.


Dearest Reader, surely you know the tale of the Labyrinth? There was a girl who wished away her brother to the Goblin King, and fought through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered to reach his castle beyond the goblin city, to take back the child he had stolen from her. It is not a true story, though of course you knew that as well. What you are perhaps uneducated in regards to is why. Dear, dear Reader, you think that the story is nothing more than _just_ a story because it contains such fantastic creatures as goblins, fairies, and a greatest assortment of other likewise creatures. This is not the true reason that the story is false, for indeed all of those strange beings that are recounted in the tale are quite real and would be offended to learn you believed them to not be real. No, the reason that the tale is not true is because, like so many great stories of epic proportions that have come before, a great deal of the truth of the matter has been lost in the re-telling.

~oOo~

Linda Williams scowled at her five-year-old daughter. The previous weekend, while she'd been busy auditioning for a soap-opera, her husband Robert had taken their little girl to visit with his mother. There, the old woman had filled the child's head with stories of fairies, goblins, leprechauns, gnomes, elves, brownies and a whole host of other likewise fantastical creatures. In and of itself, Linda didn't mind that. She _did_ mind that the child had decided to search for those same imaginary beings in the back yard, and that rolling around in the mud seemed to be a requirement for the searching.

"You little fiend!" Linda exclaimed at her daughter, horrified and enraged. It seemed that nothing had gone right for her ever since she'd birthed the child. "You want to find those things your Nana tells stories about?" she demanded.

The little girl, frightened by her mother's terrible expression, nodded silently.

Now, Linda Williams, for all that she did not mind fantastical stories, and for all that she _did_ mind mess, knew very little about the tales told by her mother-in-law regarding the "fair folk", or she would perhaps have chosen different words.

"Oh, but the fairies are too _nice_ I'm sure to want anything to do with a horrible child like you," she said, not noticing her husband entering the room at that moment. "Oh no. I wish the _goblins_ would come and take you away! You little horror, you'd fit right in. I dare say they'd make you their queen or some such nonsense," the woman huffed. "Ha! That's perfect! Wish their _king_ would come and take you, _right now_!"

"Linda!" Robert exclaimed in a horrified hiss.

"I rather think she is a little young to be made queen _yet_," a new voice interjected.

The two adults and the child all stared at the figure that had entered the room in some unknown way, and only the child guess – correctly – that it had been achieved by magic.

The figure was tall, masculine, and ethereally handsome. He wore a breastplate of embossed leather, a cape of black velvet, and his clothes were satin beneath. His hands were covered in black kid gloves, and his black leather boots rose to his knees. With one of those gloved hands, he gestured another figure forwards, even as he went down on one knee to look the girl-child in the eye.

"Little One," he greeted politely. "This is Hoggle, and he is going to take you to my castle while I discuss some things with your parents, alright?" he asked kindly.

The much shorter figure who had stepped forward at his monarch's bidding was wrinkled of hands and face, white hair stuck out beneath his red leather helmet, and he was dressed otherwise simply in brown cotton trousers and a white cotton shirt which had sleeves that were quite billowy but which were cinched tight at his wrists by his cuffs. He gave a kind smile and offered his hand, which the girl-child took willingly and with a bright smile of her own on her mud-covered face.

"And draw her a bath perhaps," the beautiful, tall man suggested as Hoggle walked away into the shadows with the child. Just before the pair completely vanished, it was possible to see Hoggle nod his head.

The child gone, the tall figure straightened once more and looked at the parents. The mother who watched him, the father whose gaze was fixed on the shadows where the child had vanished.

"Humans," the tall figure intoned, and raised his hand. A perfectly clear orb appeared at his fingertips. "I wonder if you know who I am."

The woman shook her head.

"I think I do," Robert answered. "You're the Goblin King, aren't you?"

The handsome, imposing figure smiled. It was a cruel smile, but it congratulated the man on his correctness all the same.

"My mother said that when the fair folk take a child away, they always leave a trade or offered the chance to get the child back," Robert continued, and it was clear from his tone that he was hoping he might be able to get his little girl back.

"Smart woman," the Goblin King answered with a smirk, and held out the crystal to Linda. "For you, woman, I offer you your dreams in exchange for your daughter, and all of your memories of her."

Linda looked from his face, to the crystal, to his face and back again. Playing across the surface of that magical sphere she could see herself walking the red carpet in Hollywood, her name in lights on Broadway, a star of stage and screen. She held out her hand to accept.

"You take that and I'm filing for divorce," Robert growled lowly.

Linda spared her husband a glance, but did not retract her hand. She even took a step closer to the Goblin King so that she might reach more easily that which he was offering her.

"So be it," the Goblin King said, and dropped the dream into her outstretched palm. It sunk into her hand, and Linda would swear – if she could remember that moment – that she had felt _something_ rushing through her blood. The next moment, the phone rang, and she rushed to answer it. She called out to Robert that he could have his divorce and everything else – she was going to be on the next flight to Hollywood.

"I want my daughter back please, your Majesty," Robert said before the Goblin King could disappear into the shadows and back to his kingdom.

The regal being smirked, and Robert was aware of his house disappearing from around him until he stood on a barren hill overlooking the largest maze he had ever seen.

"If you want her back, then you must fetch her back from my castle yourself," the Goblin King told him, pointing to the great rising silhouette that was beyond the many twisting walls that lay sprawled before them. "You have thirteen hours," he said, and then he faded away, gone.

Robert Williams wasted not a second more standing still where he was.

~oOo~

The girl-child had been bathed and re-dressed in a clean cream tunic and grey trousers that the Goblin King rather suspected of being _his_ from when _he_ was that small some centuries ago, and when she saw him she hopped up from where she had been sitting and did her very best to curtsey to him, though tunic and trousers weren't really fashioned for such actions. Still, for a five-year-old she performed the action remarkably well, and the Goblin King could not help but smile for her.

"And why do you curtsey to me, Little One?" he asked, once again going down on one knee before the child so that he could look in her eyes as he spoke to her.

"Mr Hoggle explained about you being the Goblin King," the child said, "and Nana told me that kings in castles should always be bowed and curtseyed to," she stated with all her wide-eyed and childish innocence and certainty.

"What else did your Nana tell you?" asked the Goblin King, smile still on his face. There was just something about the girl-child that encouraged the expression to present itself and remain there.

"All sorts of things!" the girl-child enthused happily. "She told me stories about a whole 'nother world that most people can't see where people called the 'fair folk' live, and where _nothing_ is as it seems!"

The Goblin King laughed delightedly, and sat down so that he could pull the child onto his lap. "I see," he said in admiring wonderment, acted up for the sake of the child. "But shall I tell you a secret?" he confided lowering his voice to a whisper and bringing his head in close to hers so that their noses were nearly touching.

"I can keep a secret," the girl-child promised, here lovely green eyes wide with wonder.

"It's only grown-ups who think things don't make sense," he told her. "Their heads are too full with the way they think things _should_ be, or the way they _want_ things to be, to be able to accept the way that things _are_."

The girl-child nodded her head seriously. "I'll remember, and I won't tell," she promised, a smile creeping onto her face.

The Goblin King sat back straight once more and considered the child in his lap at that moment, and realised he had not yet asked her name. Quite the oversight.

"Little One," he said, cocking his head to one side. "When I was talking to your parents, I quite forgot to ask them your name, may I enquire it of you?"

The girl-child giggled behind her hands. "I'm Sarah," she told him.

"My name is Jareth," the Goblin King confided with a soft smile. "Now, I have some important things to tell you, Sarah, and not all of it is nice."

Sarah nodded, setting her hands in her lap and giving Jareth her full and solemn attention. A five-year-old should not have such soulful green eyes, or be able to look so serious.

"Your mother, for reasons I cannot fathom, chose to take her dreams in exchange for her claim and all of her memories of you. Your father, on the other hand, is at this very moment trying to reach the castle so that he can take you home with him," Jareth explained to the girl-child in his lap.

The girl-child who just nodded in acceptance. "Nana told me a story about that too," she confided quietly, and that explained more than it didn't.

"Your Nana knows a lot," Jareth said softly, then smiled gently. "How does she know so much about me and my kind?" he asked.

Sarah smiled up at him. "She says the stories were told to her by _her_ Nana, and told her Nana by _her_ Nana, and they've been very careful to not change the stories when they tell them again, Nana says."

For thirteen hours the Goblin King and the girl-child talked and played together, singing, dancing, and chasing goblins around the castle, and it was _just_ as the last seconds of those thirteen hours ticked away that Robert stumbled into the throne room, worn, wearied, worried, but his gaze instantly fixing on his little girl.

"You have only _just_ made it in time," Jareth pronounced. "Congratulations," he added with a small smile, though the look in his mismatched eyes was sad when they turned back to the girl-child. "You get to go home with your father, Little One," he said, looking down at the child.

Sarah looked up at him, her pink cheeks still a little chubby with youth, and an astonishingly worried look in her green eyes. "Will you visit me?" she asked.

Jareth's heart melted and he knelt before the girl-child once more. "Every night in your dreams," he promised solemnly.

Sarah smiled happily at this, even hugged him tight and gave him a kiss on his pallid cheek before going to her father. "See you soon, Majesty!" she called back, waving as she and her father disappeared back to their house Above.

~oOo~

True to his word, the Goblin King visited the girl-child in her dreams every night. He was her best friend as she grew, and any time she didn't understand something he would take the time to explain it to her until she did. He even explained why her father had forgotten running the Labyrinth for her when Sarah had not forgotten her thirteen hours there:

"As a grown-up, with his head full of what should and should not be, believing that there are things that are impossible, your father believed his running to be nothing more than a bad dream. But you, my dear Sarah, have not yet been stuffed full of grown-up silliness that says certain things are impossible, and so you remember as clearly as you remember the dreams I share with you now."

When Sarah was ten, her father started going out in the evenings, leaving her with a sitter. The sitter, the very first night, had told Sarah that her father was on a date. Sarah had asked Jareth that night what a 'date' was.

"I believe it is something like courtship," Jareth answered. "Though, I am given to understand that two people who 'date' are seeking to learn if they could continue to pursue a romantic relationship with the other, whereas courting couples are determining if they would make a suitable match for marriage."

Sarah frowned at this explanation. "You mean, Daddy is looking for someone to be a new Ma to me?" she asked tentatively.

"I believe so," Jareth answered. "Though I am not human myself, so I could well be wrong about his intentions."

Sarah nodded, accepting this. She knew that the Goblin King was not human. She'd known that since the moment she met him. He _looked_ a lot _like_ a human, but he wasn't one, and while he could explain a lot of things, there were some things he didn't understand, because he didn't entirely understand humans. With Sarah's help though, he was getting a bit better at it. Or at least, he was getting quite good at understanding Sarah.

Then the girl-child had her first sex-ed class, which had confused her so thoroughly that she'd actually talked to the Goblin King about the 'secret female business' that she had been educated upon that day. Sarah had never seen his cheeks so red before. They reddened further – and hers were likewise red – as she continued with her slightly stuttered explanations of what she had been told about _boys_. Then she'd gone and asked a question that, perhaps, she should not have.

"Is it true?" she asked. "Does that really happen?"

Jareth coughed a nervous cough, clearing his throat and fighting against the blush in his cheeks, knowing it was futile as he felt them warm even _further_. "I would not know," he admitted. "I have never been in love to have such reactions... though the description of the male anatomy does sound correct, yes."

"O-oh," Sarah stammered, blushing and looking down at her hands as they twisted in her lap. She tried steering the conversation to a less embarrassing topic. "You've... _never_ been in love?" she asked.

Jareth smiled weakly in appreciation of her attempted diversion. "For all that I am several thousand years old, precious Sarah, no; I have never been in love."

"I think that's terribly sad," Sarah decided, wrapping both of her small arms around Jareth's much more muscular one, though both were hidden in large billowing sleeves that came in tight at the cuff. "In the stories Nana tells me, being in love isn't always nice, and it certainly isn't easy for the people in her stories who _are_ in love, but it still sounds like the most wonderful feeling to ever feel in the whole world."

Jareth smiled down at the girl-child who was soon to become a woman, and he knew that he was fond of her. He had been taken with her when she was only five, and had found contentment in her companionship in the years since then. Perhaps he could fall in love with Sarah, and she with him, and they would get to know what it would be like to be the characters from Nana Williams' stories.

"Will you tell me one of your Nana's stories about love?" Jareth asked. "Since I do not know what it is to be in love, I should like to know better."

Sarah giggled, but nodded happily, and – because this was _her_ dream in _her_ head and she could do what_ever_ she wanted – pointed to a spot just a few feet in front of where they both sat. There, a rocking-chair appeared, an an old lady in it with smiling green eyes and steel grey hair that was draped over her shoulder in a long braid, and the old woman rocked in her chair and smiled at the girl-child and the Goblin King and told them a story about being in love, and how terrible it was to feel so truly wonderful.

~oOo~

Slowly, Sarah's body began to mature as the repeated sex-ed classes said that it would, and her interactions with the Goblin King in her dreams began to change. She did not doubt for a moment that he was real, not at all. She was forever being called a 'dreamer' by her peers at school, and was somewhat ostracised because of it. She didn't mind. Honestly didn't care. Jareth was her best friend and she valued _quality_ over _quantity_ any day, especially when considering friendship. All the same, her body began to change and she could not _help_ but notice Jareth as... well, a very attractive person of the opposite gender, regardless of his non-humanity.

The childish games were still played, tag a favourite, and the conversations of their days and questions about their worlds were still exchanged, but for all their fast friendship, the two were ever-so-slightly more tentative around each other now, and careful of where hands were placed.

Sarah was fourteen when Jareth began to teach her how to dance. He taught her how to gracefully glide across the floor and not even need to look down at her feet, how to know what she would need to do based on the way her dance-partner moved. How _he_ moved, for he was always her dance-partner.

On the night that Sarah turned fourteen, she tentatively leaned up to place a soft kiss against the lips of her dance-partner.

"Was that alright?" she asked shyly when he only stared down at her.

"Oh yes," he breathed out. "I don't know why, but I liked that very much."

They shared shy little smiles, and kisses like that one became something that happened every night, each kiss a little more sure than the one before it.

"I love you, Jareth, Goblin King," Sarah told him one night in her dreams. She was sixteen and sweetly ensconced in his embrace, her head tucked under his chin.

"I love you, Sarah Williams, human girl-child," he answered. "I will miss you when you die."

Sarah stiffened in his hold. "I'm sorry," she said, holding him a little bit tighter. "You'll be lonely again. I don't want you to be lonely again."

Jareth held on a little tighter as well, and they stayed like that until the dream ended.

"There..." he began tentatively, the next night when they once more had their arms wrapped around each other, "there _is_ a way..." he offered.

"A way?" Sarah asked, tilting her head back so that she could look up at him with her curious green eyes.

Jareth nodded. "A way for you to never leave me," he expanded, hurriedly, nervously. "I spent the last thirteen hours searching the ancient library of my castle," he explained, smiling hopefully down at the girl-child in his arms.

Sarah's eyes grew wide and sparkled like the stars in the night sky above them. "How?" she asked.

The Goblin King conjured a scroll with a gesture and held it out for the girl-child. "I believe that there will be lots of kissing involved," he ventured.

"Then we have a head-start," she proclaimed as she accepted the scroll and began to read it.

~oOo~

There _was_ a lot of kissing involved. And touching. And all sorts of things that were considered _not proper_ for girls of sixteen to be doing. It didn't matter to Sarah though, because she knew that it was just the foolish talk of grown-ups who had forgotten that things really were much more simple than they made them out to be. The first time had been awkward, strange, and had hurt a little bit at the beginning, but they had worked it out together, and Jareth had been gentle and tender and caring through it all.

Then, one morning, Sarah had woken from her dreaming and had to rush to the bathroom. One hand was clamped over her mouth, the other over her stomach, and she just made it to the bathroom in time to throw-up in the toilette.

Her father insisted she stay in bed, brought her a chuck-bucket, a bottle of lemonade – he swore the bubbles would help settle whatever was churning in there, and it actually seemed to work – and some re-heated takeaway from the night before. Then he called the school to say she was sick and staying home, and apologised that he really _did_ have to go to work.

Sarah didn't sleep, though she did stay in bed. She spent the day reading. A few chapters from her school books, skimming through library books to the interesting parts, re-reading favourites all the way through for the nth time.

The next morning, Sarah was repeating her run to the bathroom. She hated throwing up, but last night Jareth had confirmed that they were having a baby. They'd had a beautiful wedding in her dreams that the Goblin King had claimed was enough for her to be recognised as his Queen, and as soon as their first child was born – according to the scroll he had shown her – she would become. Specifically, she would change into the same sort of fair creature as her husband. She would live in the same timelessness as he did, would live as _long_ as he did, and once the child was born he could – and would – whisk them away to his kingdom.

The child, their son, wouldn't be human after all, and so could be taken without need for wish or exchanges, and Sarah would be a changeling going home... with her husband.

~The End~


End file.
